This Innovative Salon Created an "Anti-Bleach" Option for Rainbow Hair Colors

Let's be real, bleach is the worst. Sure, the lightener transforms hair into a clean canvas for vibrant (and occasionally neon) colors. However, in the process, it often burns like hell and can even cause serious hair destruction. Luckily, hair color brands like Lime Crime and Splat are making dying dark strands a lot easier. And now, we're seeing a brand-new technique that allows people to dye their hair rainbow shades without any aggressive bleaching.

After a couple years of testing, Not Another Salon is now offering what it calls an "anti-bleach" option. "Instead of using bleach, we have been using the lightest blonde colors to lift the hair, experimenting and testing to discover exactly which bright shade specifically will lay over the top each lightness and then trained all our staff in this technique," Sophia Hilton, the salon's owner, explained in a recent Instagram post.

In the process, the colorists are able to preserve their client's hair health and limit damage like breakage, so bold, Instagrammable hair colors still happen — but with far less worry. In recent Instagram posts, Not Another Salon has proven you really can color your hair tangerine, ocean blue, and other bold shades without bleaching.

Not Another Salon has been making major strides lately to educate Instagram about the issues with Instagram hair-color trends, including how long the transformations actually take and managing unrealistic expectations. The new option is no different. In fact, it was basically born out of Hilton's argument that colorists at other salons often give their clients the rainbow hair colors of their dreams without weighing in future options or the damage it may cause.

"New clients were coming to us with such extreme damage that we would refuse to bleach them anymore, and after seeing so many brought to tears, we had to look at other options," she wrote in the anti-bleach announcement. "Now, two years on we have clients with all sorts of colors like pink, green, purple and yellow but with the added bonus of having healthy hair for the first time in their life."

Another plus of anti-bleach is it helps keep your edges intact. "Our anti-bleach option doesn’t damage those sensitive and delicate hairs [around the hairline]," a colorist at the salon who goes by Spooky explained on Instagram, "so they start to grow back and you don’t get those fussy wispy bits poking out when you have your hair up."

New clients were coming to us with such extreme damage... and after
seeing so many [of them] brought to tears, we had to look at other options.

Unfortunately, the new technique comes with a couple caveats. Two important factors will rule you our as a candidate for the anti-bleach option: having previously colored your hair and/or having super dark hair. However, the anti-bleach technique will definitely work on dark blonde or light brown hair. Certain colors are off the board, too: Colorist Harriet Stokes shared on Instagram that you'll need to rule out pastels and ash tones because "we just can't lift the hair light enough," she explains.

All this doesn't mean Not Another Salon will stop using bleach entirely, though. "Bleach is still needed every day in our salon (and we couldn’t live without it)," Hilton says, "but we are always looking for new ways to give the client something that will tick all their boxes." Until someone creates a way to dye hair of every type and color bold shades without breakage, I'm sure Not Another Salon's clients — and their hair — are grateful for its latest innovation.